The founding academic artist: Raymond Weaver, professor of music and fine arts, 1947–1986

1947–1986 · Bethel College's founding generation

The test, and what it found: Bethel is the city's college, opened on 15 September 1947, and the founding-artist pattern was tested against Bethel's own record — its university magazine, its student newspaper the Beacon, its catalogues, and the obituary record of the founding families. The record carries one founding fine-arts figure whole, and he is a professor of music and fine arts, not the head of a separate art department: Raymond Weaver.

The man at the size the record carries him: Bethel University's magazine (Fall 2018) names him "former Professor of Music and Fine Arts Raymond Weaver" and states that "Weaver was one of the first faculty members hired at Bethel, and served from the college's founding until 1986" — a thirty-nine-year tenure that begins with the college itself. The Beacon's account of the September 2018 unveiling of his glass collection gives the same span from the other side: "professor at Bethel from the time it opened in 1947 until his retirement in 1986." He had attended Oberlin College (his son A. Douglas Weaver's obituary, South Bend Tribune, 5 May 2011, carries the schooling and the thirty-plus years of Bethel teaching). His teaching reached beyond the campus in the record: a 1974 Goshen College listing carries "Introduction to Fine Arts, Prof. Raymond Weaver — Bethel." On campus he is remembered in the university magazine's own terms as an animated teacher — the art department chair of 2018, Michael May, is quoted on the style of a man whose students of the late 1960s, among them the history professor Dennis Engbrecht, were still on the faculty half a century later. In September 2018 some five hundred alumni and friends gathered for an evening the university called "Remembering Ray," and the night opened the exhibition of the glass collection that now bears his name in the gallery that bears his name (the gallery's course stands in its own entry below).

What the record does not carry: No Bethel source reached names a founding professor of a separate visual-art department, an art-department founding date, or a first art major distinct from Weaver's combined music-and-fine-arts chair. The department that exists today — chaired in the 1990s and 2000s by David Edward Harmon (chair and tenured associate professor of art, 1990–2005, by his own curriculum vitae) and in the later 2010s by Katharine Schmidt (named assistant professor and chair of the visual art department in Bethel's magazine, Spring 2016) and by Michael May (art department chair and Weaver Gallery director, 2015–2019, by his résumé — the two mid-2010s chair records are printed as they stand) — descends from Weaver's founding professorship in the record reached, and no earlier or separate founder stands behind him in it. The settler for a department-level founding, if one exists, is the Bethel University archives — the Missionary Church Archives & Historical Collections in the Bowen Library — and the run of early Bethel catalogues, which fix faculty and department lines year by year.

Sources:

1. Bethel University magazine, Fall 2018 — Weaver as one of the first faculty hired, professor of music and fine arts from the founding to 1986; the "Remembering Ray" gathering of 14 September 2018 and the glass exhibition opening.
2. Bethel Beacon, "Raymond Weaver Glass Collection Unveiling," September 2018 — professor from the college's opening in 1947 to retirement in 1986; the family donation; Michael May and Dennis Engbrecht quoted.
3. Obituary of A. Douglas Weaver, South Bend Tribune via Legacy, 5 May 2011 — Raymond Weaver's thirty-plus years at Bethel and his Oberlin schooling.
4. Goshen College record, 1974 — "Introduction to Fine Arts, Prof. Raymond Weaver — Bethel."
5. Curriculum vitae of David Edward Harmon — chair and associate professor of art, Bethel College, 1990–2005. Résumé of Michael May — art department chair 2015–2019 and Weaver Gallery director. Bethel University magazine, Spring 2016 — Katharine Schmidt as chair of the visual art department.
6. Settler named for the department-founding gap: Bethel University archives (Missionary Church Archives & Historical Collections, Bowen Library) and the early Bethel catalogue run.